A wannabe or pre entrepreneur. A portmanteau of “want” and “entrepreneur”.
Often used pejoratively: wantrepreneurs are poseurs, pretenders, wannabes and not even as good as “failures”, who are lionized in startup culture–as they have at least tried.
There are efforts to re-examine, reclaim, and rehabilitate the term. Some use this term endearingly, respecting the difficulty for most to become true entrepreneurs. Others recognize that many current, successful entrepreneurs are simultaneously wondering if they should instead be pursuing another entrepreneurial idea.
One suggested metric to separate the two, is wantrepreneurs tend to fixate on / fall in love with a particular/their solution, while true entrepreneurs fixate on / fall in love with a particular problem,